Olympics

[FreediveWI]

Unfortunately Freediving gets a bad rap from people like Pipin.

His wife died because he put together a huge group of Strokes for a safety team- one diver on air at 330' and one on mix at 560'. If you look at people like Tanya Streeter, who puts a diver on mix every 30' all the way down the line, you will see a much better record- as in no problems.

The international competition in Cyprus this year yielded new record constant weight dives ( no sleds, just fins) to depths of 345' without a problem. The safety system is very impressive. All divers are teathered to a down line. If at anytime there is a probelm underwater a weight is released on the counter balance system and the diver is on the surface in less than a minute. In addition to this there are safety diver and photographers up and down the lines. Dives don't count if the diver even shows the slightest signs of a blackout once back on the surface. Dives also don't count if they are not videod from start to finish. All of this falls under the guidelines put forth by AIDA and the USAA. The crap you see in the "Big Blue" and Pipins videos are circus acts and not real athletic competition.

There has never been a death in an orginized comeption- only during self proclaimed "record dives" that weren't conducted in organized venues.

One of the ideas, to make it easier for spectators, would be to limit Olympic events to dynamic apnea- swimming laps underwater in a pool. This could be easily set up with safety divers, camera, spectators, and venues. Yhe current world rfecord, for men, is something like 200 meters on a single breath.

Jon